Thursday, July 30, 2009

This is a remake of a movie of the same name from 1978. It is directed by Jamie Blanks who also did Valentine and Urban Legend. It stars Jim Caviezel and Claudia Karvan.

Peter(Caviezel) and Carla(Karvan) are a couple whose relationship is falling apart. They are going for a vacation to the countryside to try and patch up their failing marriage. Carla had an affair and she became pregnant and decided to have an abortion. Peter is angry at her because he didn't know if the child was his or the other guy's and she didn't consult him before she got rid of it. Carla isn't too fond of camping unlike Peter who packs up his gun and his surfboard. They are going to a secluded beach with their dog.

We see from their behaviour that they are not at one with nature and they abuse it many times. You just know that nature is going to fight back!They are falling out with each other every few minutes and when things start to go wrong for them, Carla wants to go home. She doesn't want to stay after they discover something weird in the water while Peter is swimming. Then they discover a dead sea cow on the beach. It looks as if it has been dragged along, but there is nobody else on the beach...Carla tries to get out of there, but Peter has done something to their jeep so she can't go. They see another vehicle out there, but they can't find anyone in it. Peter pokes around and he finds dead bodies. He is determined to get the hell out of the bush now...

They can't find the dog and Peter won't leave without it. Carla takes off anyway and she leaves him with the dog. Peter spends the night at the camp and the next morning, he awakes to find the sea cow beside him. It has been dragged all the way to the camp. He is horrified and he runs through the bush. He comes upon Carla who has been killed. He finds the jeep and tries to drive out of the bush but he crashes it. He races through the bush and...I'm not giving away the ending.. Let's just say it's not much of a surprise...

I liked this movie,but I found it a little slow. You could have cut out most of it and just left in the creepy parts..All in all, it was interesting more than anything else. Scary? Not really. I am giving it a 5/10.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

This movie is another movie about city folk wandering into the countryside and being terrorised by the uncivilized yokels they find there! It is becoming a bit of a cliche, but it is entertaining all the same. This movie stars Haylie Duff and Ryan Merriman and it is directed by Marty Weiss who hasn't directed much.Watch the trailer here.So, the movie begins with a couple in the woods camping. They are attacked and brought to a place where the guy is murdered and the girl is impregnated by some giant guy. We cut to some people from a company led by Mark Till who are going on a paint balling weekend to build their survival skills etc. The employees are looking forward to it and they think that it will be fun. So, they set off into the countryside and they are broken into two groups, Alpha and Bravo. That night, one of the guys, Adam(Merriman) hears a noise and goes to investigate. There is nothing to be seen.The next day, they begin their paint balling fun.One team are having fun and they see someone walking through the woods. They think that it is one of the other team but it isn't. They are not alone out here in the woods.....They come upon an abandoned house and they poke around. They are captured by people with weapons. They are taken to some place underground where the men are put in cages and the women are taken away and used for childbearing. We find out that the leader of this group is called 'Mother' and that she runs the cult. She uses young girls and gets her son to impregnate them and add to her 'family'. The cult mistakenly thought that the group of employees were FBI agents who were trying to take their land from them..One by one, the employees are killed or they get caught by the cult. Lee(Duff) is taken also and she is taken away to be raped by the giant guy. Adam is the only one who can help her and they escape and try to run with all of the cult following them.. They are shot at and they are almost captured many times, but they get away. They are finally rescued and the real FBI go in to find out what is happening in the woods. Mother has been killed and most of the others have died too. But, there is someone who survived.....This movie was entertaining with some good scares. The plot was a bit silly in places, but the film was well-made and enjoyable. I am going to give it an 7/10.

Monday, July 27, 2009

I have only just seen this now and it makes me want to travel immediately to England!!! It is a Saw themed ride.............Let the Games begin! Check out this video...........

You can see actual On-Ride footage in this video!

Then if you are still interested in knowing more then check out this short documentary about Saw - The Ride!!!

If you have been on it, please comment on what you thought of it!It shows how the Saw Franchise is still going strong and what effect the Jigsaw character has on people.Everything seems scarier when you see Billy the Puppet and the slowed down voice over! I wish we had something like it here in Ireland but the only roller coaster we have is on the bad roads that go up and down!!!!!!!

This is the third installment of the Ice Age series. Having seen the first and second movies, I was interested in this one. I don't love animated movies, but this was amusing.There are plenty of well-known voices such as Ray Romano, Queen Latifah,Denis Leary and Sean William Scott to mention but a few.

So, we begin from where the last movie left off.Ellie(Queen Latifah) and Manny(Romano) are still together and Ellie is pregnant. They are both busy with preparing for their new baby and their old pals are feeling a bit left out. Diego(Dennis Leary) is finding it harder to be the predator that he was and it is depressing him. Sid(John Leguizamo) is fed up with Ellie and Manny's obsession with the baby and he finds some abandoned eggs in a cave and adopts them as his own. He doesn't put them back and they hatch. They are baby dinosaurs!Of course, the mother of these little babies comes looking for them and she takes her babies back and she takes Sid with her underground. The other animals club together with Manny, Ellie and Diego and they go to the underground jungle where there are dinosaurs living. They meet a weasel called Buck(Simon Pegg) who has only one eye. He tells them that he has been chasing a huge dinosaur called Rudy for a long time and that is how he lost his eye. He leads the group through the jungles and he helps them get to Sid and rescue him.They are in danger when Ellie goes into labour and gives birth to her little baby. There are dangerous dinosaurs around and they have to fend them off. Sid sees the baby and he is sad to know that his adopted babies are not his any more. They are attacked by Rudy who tries to eat them all. They are saved by the mother dinosaur who kills Rudy. Sid has to say goodbye to his little babies and they work their way home. Buck stays underground as he doesn't think that Rudy is really dead and he wants to chase him down again. They all remain together as a family...This is a kid's movie, but it isn't bad at all. There were some decent laughs and it wasn't boring at least. You will either like these types of movies or hate them. If you don't like animated kids movies, then don;t watch this. But, if you like a warm hearted tale of friendship with some laughs thrown in, then this is worth seeing...I am giving this one a 7/10.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

This movie is based on a short story written by Stephen King. I enjoyed the story a lot as I like the theme of revenge. It stars Wes Bentley and Christian Slater who was perfect in this role and it is directed by Jeff Beesley.The story begins with a school teacher called Tom Robinson(Bentley) and his wife, Elizabeth(Emmanuelle Vaugier). They are a happily married couple and Elizabeth is pregnant with their child. Then we meet baddie Dolan(Slater) who is doing deals with shady people and is involved with human trafficking. He is in the middle of murdering some people in the desert when Elizabeth witnesses what he has done. He sees her and traces her when she drops her mobile phone. She goes to the police to tell them what she has seen and they tell her that it is very hard to catch Dolan. He has buried the evidence in the desert and when the cops go there to find something, there is nothing to find. Tom and Elizabeth are told by the FBI agent Fletcher(Al Sapienza) that they can be protected 24 hours a day if Elizabeth testifies.

Elizabeth and Tom are in a hotel room for two months waiting for the chance to testify and when Elizabeth gets into her car, she is blown up by a bomb. Tom is consumed by grief and he goes to pieces. He knows that this was Dolan's doing, but there is nothing that he can do about it as Dolan is a powerful man with a lot of connections. He has henchmen to do his dirty work for him. He is protected by his armoured Cadillac.Tom buys a gun and he follows Dolan around, but Dolan catches him and his henchman beats Tom up. Tom needs another plan and he comes up with one. He gets a job working on the highways so that he will be able to complete his plan. He knows that Dolan's Cadillac will be passing along where he is working and he wants to set up his own detour to trap him.

So, on a weekend when the other workers are at home, he starts to set up his fake detour and Dolan drives into a huge pit that he has dug. One of his henchmen is killed and the other one is badly hurt so Dolan finishes him off. Dolan doesn't know what is happening at first, but he gets the idea after a while. He is horrified at the thought of being buried alive and he tries to get out by offering Tom money which doesn't work and by promising to go to the cops and give himself up which also doesn't work. Tom continues to taunt him and to remind him that he brought this on himself. Eventually, Dolan is covered up and Tom has his revenge that he has dreamt of for so long.....

I enjoyed this movie and although it started off a little slow, by the end, it had picked up. It is worth seeing for Slater's performance as the sleazebag Dolan. I am giving it 6/10.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Here are some videos that I just thought I would share as they make me smile when I watch them and I hope they have the same effect on you!! I bought a Catnip Cushion and wondered would my cats even look at it,never mind play with it! They loved it and you can see how they got on here!!

Here Felix starts off playing with it but soon Kitty wants in on the action!

In this video after a short tussle they lie down and roll around with the cushion together taking turns and then they both get very tired!! I hope you like these two videos!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

This fluffy rom-com stars Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and it is directed by Mark Waters who also directed Just Like Heaven and Mean Girls.

Connor Mead(McConaughey) is a self-centred womaniser who just uses every woman he meets for sex and then leaves them. He is a photographer and he works with a lot of models who he bangs and then leaves. He has to return to his home when his brother Paul(Breckin Meyer) is getting married to Sandra(Lacey Chabert). He is against marriage and he doesn't believe in lover etc. He tries to tell his brother that he can back out of it any time he likes and that he will help him escape. His brother doesn't want to back out and he seems to love Sandra.So, Connor meets his childhood sweetheart, Jenny(Garner) and he remembers back to when they were kids growing up. He ruins everything when he lets it slip that Paul slept with one of the bridesmaids. He is visited by his dead uncle Wayne(Michael Douglas) who tells him that he is going to be visited by ghosts who will show him the girlfriends of his past, present and future.He is visited by the first girl he had sex with and she shows him how he fell for Jenny when he was younger and how they didn't get together. She shows him how he learned how to treat women from his playboy uncle Wayne and how he lost Jenny because of this.Then he is visited by his personal assistant as a ghost and she shows him where he is now. He is shown all the women that he has mistreated and he feels terrible. He is beginning to realise that he has wasted so much time being a jerk. He is treated to a glimpse of the future by the last ghost and he sees Jenny marrying someone else and it shocks him into trying to change himself. He saves the wedding from being cancelled and he manages to become a better person.He realises that he loves Jenny and he tries to make amends for being such a creep and he wins Jenny back in the process.This movie was okay. McConaughey is suited to the part of the womaniser and Garner is okay as the love interest. It wasn't a bad movie and if you like light comedies, then you will love this. I am going to give it a 5/10.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Well, what can I say about this movie? It is a strange one. It is set in a health club and it is pretty poor. It is directed by Michael Fischa(no, don't know him either) and it stars William Bumiller and Brenda Bakke.The Star Body Health Spa is owned by Michael Evans(Bumiller). The spa is run by computers which switch everything on and off. The computers are the brainchild of Michael's ex- brother in law, David(Merritt Butrick). David and Michael do not get on as David blames Michael for his sister's death. David's sister, Catherine was married to Michael and she was in a wheelchair. She died when she set herself on fire. Michael's girlfriend, Laura(Bakke) is in the spa one night along when she is locked in the steam room and burned. She is rushed to hospital. The cops are called in and they snoop around to see if anyone had a reason to hurt Laura.

Meanwhile, there are more strange goings on as somebody loosens the bolts on the diving board and some poor woman almost gets killed. The cops look at the computer to see if they can find anything to show them what happened, but there is nothing. David is not happy to see them prying. Michael and David have words. There are more incidences such as the water coming on boiling hot in the ladies showers. Mike asks the manager, Priscilla(Alexa Hamilton) about it, but she claims not to know anything. Meanwhile, some poor guy is ripped apart by the weight machine. Other people are getting hurt and getting killed!This is where the movie gets confusing.

We find out that Michael's lawyer and Priscilla have been tampering with stuff around the gym trying to put Michael out of business. But, the killings continue and we find out that it is actually David who is killing people. But that's not all. Dead Catherine has taken over David's body and she is making him do these horrible things. So, at a party, Catherine comes out and she starts killing people. She has come for Michael too and she tries to kill him and Laura. Catherine can work machines(???) just by looking at them! So, anyway, Michael rescues Laura from a tanning death!!! Michael blows up the computers resulting in Catherine's death. She stirs for one last time before collapsing. She is dead. And so is this movie.....

Thursday, July 16, 2009

This movie is one of the worst that I have ever seen and I have watched some stinkers in my time, but this takes the cake. It was ridiculous. It is directed by Doris Wishman who did porn movies before this one....

The 'story' begins with a detective called Tim O' Malley who is telling us the story of the Kent family and some murders that happened. He goes through different murders and then he comes to Vicky Kent who killed two boys and was committed to a mental institution. She gets out five years later and her brother Billy and her sister Mary don't want her back so they hatch a plan to get her put back in the mental institution. Are you with me so far? Good because this movie loses its plot and it becomes a real mess...There is plenty of cheesy music and some really really really BAD acting. The 'actors' can hardly string a sentence together and when they do, they sound like robots. There is no emotion or feeling in their voices. It is like some nightmare that you can't escape from. You keep hoping that it might get better, but it just gets worse as Billy and Mary try to drive Vicky insane again. There is some decent killing and gore in it, but that isn't enough to hold my interest. The whole movie loses its plot and there are silly scenes which don't even make sense. I really got irritated with it and even though I stuck with it till the end, I was glad when it was over.The detective makes an entrance near the end as he 'investigates' the murders and then HE murders Vicky..The sister Mary is the one who was killing people and Vicky was innocent all along. How about that for a twist? Mary was last seen getting into a taxi with her suitcase. What is in her case, I hear you ask? Well she has packed her trusty axe and the poor lad in the taxi is going to get murdered as Mary heads into the city...There is a voice over in the end looking for information about Mary's whereabouts and the detective appeals for help in locating her.This movie was crap. I know that some people probably love it and that's great if you have the endurance to sit through this rubbish. Me, I would rather pull my toenails out than watch this ever again. It gets a paltry 1/10 and that is just because there were some interesting death scenes.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

This novel is written by a favourite of mine, Dean Koontz. He has written loads of books including Sole Survivor which I have reviewed here.This book was first published in 1981 under the psuedonym Owen West.

The book begins with a young girl in a cellar. She is spring cleaning and she hates it because she is afraid of spiders. Her mother makes her stay down there until it is clean. Suddenly, a fire starts and she is trapped in the cellar. Her mother and her aunt try to get her out, but it is no good. We cut to a couple, Carol and Paul who are going to an adoption agency. They want to have children, but Carol is unable to due to a problem she had when she was pregnant years ago. She gave her baby up for adoption. Carol is a child psychologist and Paul is writing a novel. They are assured that they have a great chance of getting a child when a tree crashes through the window of the offices where they are and stops them.

A day later, they find that their papers have gone missing so Paul has to go and get more..We cut to Grace who is a retired child psychologist. She brought Carol up as her own. She rescued the young Carol from a bad life when she was younger and the two women are close. She is worried about Carol when she has dreams of something bad happening to her. Plus her cat is acting strangely. It is very aggressive and strange. Carol, meanwhile, is driving her car when a girl steps out in front of it. She hits her, but everyone witnesses that it was not her fault and that the girl stepped out in front of her car. She takes the young girl to the hospital, but she isn't badly hurt. Carol goes back to visit her when she is awake and she discovers that the girl can't remember who she is.

So, Carol and Paul decide that the girl who they call Jane, can live with them until they find her parents. They like having her around. She is a nice young girl and she fits in well with them. Carol tries to hypnotise Jane to see if she can bring her memory back and that is when she discovers that there is something not right with this young girl... She is not all she seems..Grace and Paul have to race against time to save Carol from a deadly fate...

I liked this book, but the ending was a bit weak,I thought. I was interested in the story, but it would not be one of Dean Koontz's best books. I thought that it was okay, but not brilliant.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

I am one of many who love the Diablo series and this new game is not released yet, but I am waiting patiently as I am looking forward to playing it. I really loved Diablo 2 and I know that this new game is different, but I am sure that it will be fun anyway...Enjoy the trailer..I have included some examples of gameplay too so you can see what it will be like! It looks cool to me!!! Here is a link to the official Diablo 3 website-http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3.

Monday, July 13, 2009

This comedy is directed by Todd Phillips who also directed Starsky and Hutch, Old School and Road Trip. It stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha and Heather Graham.

The movie begins with a guy called Doug(Bartha) who is getting married in two days. His pals decide that they are going to arrange a bachelor party for him in Vegas. His pals are Phil(Cooper) who is a teacher who is married with kids, Stu(Helms) who is controlled by his bitchy girlfriend,Alan(Galifianakis) who is soon to be his brother in law and who is a bit strange. Stu lies to his girlfriend Melissa(Rachael Harris) as he is afraid to tell her the truth. She has already cheated on Stu and he forgives her which makes the other guys want to shake him.They arrive in Vegas and they book a villa in the very posh Caesars Palace. They get ready for a night on the town and they go up to the roof of the hotel to have a drink and to celebrate Doug's coming wedding. We see them the next morning and the villa is wrecked. Everything is broken and the guys are on the floor. There is a tiger in the bathroom and some woman sneaks out. The strangest thing they find is a baby in the closet. They can't remember a thing about last night and Doug is missing. Stu is missing a tooth. They try to retrace their steps from last night and to find Doug. There are some hilarious scenes with the tiger and a police car not to mention Mike Tyson!They discover that they were drugged and Alan confesses to putting something in their drink. he thought that it was Ecstasy but it was really a date rape drug which is why they can't recall anything at all.

They discover that Stu got married to a stripper played by Heather Graham(pictured below). They find out that Phil was taken to hospital with concussion. They eventually find Doug who was up on the roof and he is as red as a tomato from being in the sun. The baby belongs to the stripper and Stu finds that he likes her and he arranges to see her again. The guys set off home in a car and they change into their wedding suits on the highway! They make it back for the wedding and everything ends well. Stu finally tells Melissa to take a hike and the guys find Stu's camera with pictures of that night! They see what they got up to!!

I liked this movie and there were some great laughs. It is one of the best comedies I have seen in a while. I hear that there is going to be a sequel , so I will be looking forward to that! I am going to give this movie a 9/10. Very funny stuff!!!!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

This movie is based on a book by Bryan Burrough and it revolves around the life of John Dillinger and his pals. It is directed by Michael Mann and it stars Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

The movie begins with Dillinger(Depp) trying to break some of his friends out of prison. They shoot a prison guard in the process and Dillinger's mentor is killed. The escapees flee to a safe house and then they plan to go to Chicago to rob banks. Meanwhile, Melvin Purvis(Bale) is a special agent and he is hunting down a criminal by the name of Pretty Boy Floyd. He shoots him and kills him.(This didn't really happen that way. Floyd wasn't captured until after Dillinger's death). Purvis is promoted to lead the search for John Dillinger by J. Edgar Hoover who wants to set up the FBI at this time.

So, Dillinger is enjoying himself and he meets a woman, Billie Frechette(Marion Cotillard) and he takes her to dinner. He likes her etc and when he tells her to wait for him outside while he talks to some business associates of his, she disappears. He goes and finds her where she works and he tells her that she is with him now and that he will take care of her etc. She likes this and they become lovers.Most of the movie is about Purvis trailing Dillinger. He catches him, then loses him and he spends most of his days and nights trying to get information on him and trying to find out where he is staying. Bale does his best with the part he has been given, but I wasn't overly impressed with this movie. It has all the glamour of a 1930's film set with some great cars andsets, but there seems to be something missing.

I felt that the romantic scenes between Dillinger and his floozy could have been axed as they contributed very little to the story. This movie was all about Johnny Depp and even he couldn't make it better than it is. Don't get me wrong, there are some great actors and scenes in this film, but it was too long and some parts didn't fit in. Marion Cotillard has to be one of the worst actresses out there and I found that I didn't like her character at all. She just didn't fit the part and that really took its toll on the movie. The others did their best and the ending was very good.Johnny Depp has a lot of talent and he was good in the part despite the drawn out tale. A lot of the story isn't factual either which is a shame because there was no need to change so much of the real story. The ending comes when Dillinger is shot down on a street after coming out of a movie. This part of the movie was good, but then they ruin it by sticking in some story about Dillinger's last words to his floozy. That never happened. Sometimes these movies can be too long and that leads to boredom of the watcher. If they cut out a lot of meaningless scenes, it would be better.

So, to sum it up, Depp and Bale were good in their parts, but the movie was mediocre. Cotillard was woeful and I disliked her in this film. I would have to give this one a 6/10 and a lot of that is because of Depp and Bale....

Thursday, July 9, 2009

This is the third movie in the Evil Dead series. I have reviewed the first Evil Dead here and the second one here. It is directed by Sam Raimi and stars Bruce Campbell, of course!We begin at the end of the last movie. Ash(Campbell) fell from the sky and he was surrounded by an army.They are afraid of him and they take him as a prisoner. He is taken to the Pit to be killed along with other prisoners. He is in medieval England and he has been captured by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert). He is suspected of being one of Duke Henry's men. Duke Henry(Richard Grove) has been captured alongside him. They watch as one poor man is thrown into the Pit and is killed. It is Ash's turn next and he is toppled into it. He sees a demon at the bottom of it and he fights it when the Wise Man(Ian Abercrombie) throws him his weapons. He is hailed as a hero by the people and they are afraid of him.He lets Duke Henry and his men go. He gets great treatment after that from everyone and he even gets some loving from a gal called Sheila(Embeth Davidtz).

He talks to the Wise Man about getting home and he tells Ash that he needs the Necronomicon to get back. He sets off to try and get it. The evil is present in the woods and he flees to an old windmill for shelter. The evil tries to get in, but he blocks it.He breaks a mirror and the reflections of himself come out of it and they try to kill him with hilarious results. These scenes are very funny and he tries to kill them one by one. One of them jumps down Ash's throat and they cause an evil Ash to be created. They fight and Ash manages to kill it and bury it. He sets off on his quest again.He comes to a graveyard and finds the book. But, there are three copies. He has to choose one of them so he opens the first one. He gets sucked into a vortex, but manages to escape. The second book bites his hand . He comes to the third one and he tries to remember the words that the Wise Man told him to say when he got to the book. He mumbles the words and he thinks that he has gotten away with it.He grabs the book and he goes back to the castle.

He has unleashed an army of the dead on the world and he doesn't know it yet. His evil twin rises from the dead and he starts to raise his troops for battle.Ash wants to go home and leave the people to their doom, but he changes his mind when Sheila is captured and taken by one of the Deadites. She is turned into one of them. Ash becomes the leader of the army and they rally together to try and defeat the army of darkness which is coming. Ash makes some combat gear and he teaches the army some moves.He asks Duke Henry and his men to help them too.They are finally ready and as the army of darkness approaches , they realise that they are under manned and that they need all the help they can get, but Duke Henry is nowhere to be seen. The evil army comes and attacks them and there is a great battle between good and evil. The good side are almost defeated when Duke Henry comes to the rescue and they manage to kill off the evil army and protect the book.

Sheila wakes up and she is back to herself. Ash decides to go home and the Wise Man gives him a potion to help him. He goes to a cave and he seals himself in. He is supposed to drink six drops so that he will arrive in his own time, but he takes more and when he awakens and looks outside, he is faced with the world after a nuclear disaster. He is the only one left.....I know that this is not the theatrical ending, but this is the one I saw and it is better than the other ending, I think.I liked this a lot and it was very funny. It is a pity that his new movie, Drag Me To Hell, which I reviewed here, is not as good. This movie was everything I like about horror movies and I would watch it again. It gets an 8/10 from me!